At academic medical centers like the University of Utah, clinicians are expected to teach — but aren’t necessarily taught how to teach. Karen Gunning and Joanne Rolls come from divergent backgrounds — Gunning is a lifelong pharmacist, Rolls a physician assistant — but both are passionate about the principles of instructional design. Turns out, it’s the power of story that supports comprehension for both students and patients.

Is zero possible? In the case of central line infections, the answer was once no. A CLABSI (central line associated blood stream infection) was once considered a car crash, or an expected inevitability of care. When University of Utah’s Burn Trauma Intensive Care Unit started treating CLABSIs like a plane crash, or a tragedy demanding in-depth investigation and cultural change, zero became possible.

From pediatrics to palliative care, a common thread runs through physician Joan Sheetz’s career: effective communication. That explains how she ended up co-directing UACT — Utah Advanced Communication Training that focuses on tools to enhance patient and peer interactions.

The Effective Communicator returns this week to remedy the bane of our existences: endless, often pointless, meetings. Yes, you can run them better.

Value engineer Cindy Spangler has shared her camping and canyoneering expertise with Accelerate in the past. But this winter, her preparation may have done us in: a big purchase of new ski equipment has led to a lackluster snow season. Or has it? Cindy reviews why correlation does not imply causation.

Ever had an idea everyone agrees with but still takes a year to implement? Nutrition Services Director Carissa Christensen faced a dilemma as she developed a weight management program for patients struggling with obesity: even after you’ve defined your vision, how do you engage an entire system in an ambitious improvement project?

Three years ago, an internal study found that Huntsman Cancer Institute employees experienced significant compassion fatigue. Director of Nursing Services Sue Childress teamed up with HCI executives, providers, and managers to combat burnout by promoting conscientious leadership and a culture of civility.

Delivering a great health care experience is only possible with one crucial component: reliable scheduling. It’s such an essential part of efficient operations, in fact, that the University of Utah Health created an access optimization team to help providers across the system.

To celebrate the New Year, Value Engineer Mitch Cannon applied statistics to weight loss. He was quickly reminded of an important lesson that applies in health care: when you’re trying to improve, don’t overreact to data.

Balancing uncertainty, fear, and emotions isn’t easy — especially in health care. Family practice physician Kyle Bradford Jones looks outside of his practice to identify two common biases that affect how we behave in the face of perceived risk. His key insight? The risk that isn’t directly in front of us may be mistaken for no risk at all.

First came High Reliability Thanksgiving. Then High Reliability Camping. In keeping with the Lean holiday spirit, Accelerate’s Marcie Hopkins shares her method for high reliability gift wrapping — with a little help from our friends in Sterile Processing, who’ve perfected the envelope fold.

Just over one year ago, we launched Accelerate – University of Utah Health’s improvement community. Here are the “Top 3” articles from 2017 selected by the 16,673 members of our burgeoning community.